


House v Holmes

by Sciencefisher



Category: Elementary (TV), House M.D., Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-15 20:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12328176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sciencefisher/pseuds/Sciencefisher
Summary: Years after the death of Dr Greg House, Dr Chase finds himself in charge of the diagnostics department and he is struggling. The successes that he had known under his old mentor have been hard to replicate and as he finds himself faced with the real prospect of having his department disappear he begins receiving anonymous help online from a mysterious benefactor. He becomes convinced that Dr House is still alive and decides to hire a private detective to locate the man. The person he chooses turns out to be a world famous consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes who is living in NYC.





	1. Chapter 1

Introduction

"Doctor Robert Chase - Princeton Plainsboro Diagnostics."  
He leaned back wearily in his chair and picked up the familiar red and gray over-sized tennis ball from its resting place and tossed it lightly in the air as he answered the phone. He had watched House perform this very juggling act many times during his tenure as mentor but somehow he had always managed to make multitasking into an art form and Chase was not House.  
He had gone through dozens of team members since he was appointed Chief of Diagnostic Medicine but none of them seemed capable of helping him the way he and Allison and all the others had helped House. They were all great doctors but in the end they never seemed to tell him anything he hadn't already thought of and so he eventually got rid of them too. He still had two more left and am opening for a third but the pile of candidates had grown thinner and thinner over the past five years and none were very promising.   
Case files were piling up and not being solved. People were dying without a diagnosis that wasn't also a post-mortem.   
His personal life was nonexistent and Allison had moved on.   
He was alone just like House had always been but at least he had Wilson. Chase didn't even have that. Everything was on his shoulders.  
Foreman had considered cutting the department altogether but having a department of diagnostic medicine was unheard of even if it wasn't headed up by the legendary Dr Greg House.  
It wasn't like he didn't have any success but they were usually minor ones. Something that another doctor had missed or some test that had been done wrong or given a false reading. He still counted them as wins but they didn't feel like big wins and those were few and far between.  
He felt like he was always just one step ahead of the wolves and soon the entire enterprise would be devoured because he wasn't House.  
The phone called focused his mind sharply when he realized it was the private investigator he had hired.  
Recently, some of his more difficult cases had been solved by small notes faxed to the office from various numbers in New York City. Nothing overt. No definitive diagnoses just facts or clues or hints that would take him in a direction that he hadn't thought of and would more times than not, lead to a diagnosis.  
He had questioned all the usual suspects, Taub, 13, the others, but they all vehemently denied even knowing what he was talking about. When he mentioned it to Foreman, he jested that perhaps House was communicating with him from beyond the grave.  
Foreman could be such a jerk but that got him thinking that maybe House wasn't dead after all?  
Initially, he dismissed it as a feverish wish but every so often something would come through that was just the kind of miraculous outrage that House would come up with so he decided to look into it and see if it was possible that perhaps somehow House hadn't died in that fire?  
The first few PIs had no luck whatsoever and seemed convinced that the body buried beneath House's gravestone was the man himself but one investigator who had met House on a few occasions said to him that is He didn't want to be found, he was probably smart enough to prevent it?  
That made sense to Chase and for time he let it go but then another investigator called him and told him that there was a detective of sorts living in New York that might be up to such a challenge.  
"Dr Chase - this is Sherlock Holmes..."  
The British accent on the phone was unmistakeable. He had gotten through to the world's foremost investigative sleuth. All he had to do was convince the man that this case would be sufficiently worth his while.  
A tall order.  
Chase took a deep breath and began to recount the tale of his former mentor to the voice on the phone. Before he even finished his first sentence the voice stopped him.  
"Sorry to interrupt your dissertation doctor but I am familiar with this man already.  
His prowess with deduction attracted my attention several years back and I had heard that he met an unfortunate death.  
The fact that you have contacted me indicates that perhaps you believe his death was not - how shall we say - fatal?...”  
Chase was stunned although in his heart he knew that he should not be. From what he had heard, Holmes was every bit the genius that House was and, of course, kindred spirits were not likely to be unknown to one another. Still, having his rehearsed appeal cut short had left him speechless nonetheless.  
“...uh...”  
There was an awkward silence for just an instant before Holmes interjected himself into it.  
“Is it safe to assume you would like me to attempt to find the man - as it were?”  
“Why - yes. Exactly. That’s what I was hoping. Will you take the case?”  
Chase’s words rushed out of him in a stammer and Holmes immediately reassured him.  
“I shall be in New Jersey directly to gather what relevant facts as may be collected.  
Try to write down as much of your recollection as you can. I will review it when I arrive.”  
Before Chase could respond the sudden arrival of the dial tone let him know the conversation was at end.  
He couldn’t help but notice how similar Holmes and House were in their demeanors even though the former’s British politeness masked it well.  
He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair feeling somewhat vindicated as a brief smile formed on his face.  
Something inside of him told him that House was still alive and the thought that Sherlock Holmes was at least in partial agreement gave him a grim satisfaction that he may one day see his old mentor again.  
Later that evening Chase returned to the apartment that he and Allison had shared for those few years that they were married. He could have moved on but that was never something that he found easy to do. He had tried on more than a few occasions to leave House in the past but always managed to find a way to return. With no family and no wife, the familiarity of the hospital and this apartment were the only constants left to him and he clung to them with an Aussie tenacity that would have quickly incurred House’s mocking if he were around to inflict it but he was not.  
Walking up to the building he barely registered the fact that he had left one of the lights on that he could see from the street but gave it little thought. As he made his way through the lobby and up, his mind wandered as it jostled between thoughts of his growing backlog of cases and notions of where House could have been for the past three years. As he put his keys in the door he could hear the sound of his television emanating from within.  
“I know I didn’t leave the TV on...”  
He thought wanly to himself.  
Opening the door he found himself confronted by a slim, well built man, not tall but his stature implied one of extreme confidence if not overpowering might. He was seated erect on one of his chairs facing the door. As he entered, the man stood slowly upright as if he were about to render a salute. His hair was shorn close to the sides of his head with a slightly longer tousle arranged on top.  
“I am Sherlock Holmes”   
Said the man with a slight nod, his hands slightly clenched into loose fists at his waist.  
“I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in? I wanted to begin as soon as possible.”  
Chase was a bit bewildered at first but he and others had broken into many places before but still he wondered,  
“How did you?... That door was locked and dead bolted.”  
The man gave a brief smile and sniffed derisively,  
“About that. You really should invest in better security. Anyone with modest skill could best it in a matter of moments. I can make a recommendation if you like?”  
There was a brief moment of silence as Chase attempted to orient himself to the presence of the strange man in his apartment but he recovered quickly.   
He was used to odd.  
“Um - sure that would be great...”  
Holmes seemed entirely unaware of the discomfort he is created by being found unannounced in another man’s apartment but the slight bobbing up and down as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet belied his eagerness to move forward.   
Chase was eager to oblige.  
“So - you’ve come to New Jersey? What can I do to help you with your search?”  
Holmes turned swiftly on his heel and paced stiffly away toward the kitchen.  
“I have aquatinted myself with the particulars of your “Dr. House’s” disappearance. It would seem that you are very much justified in suspecting that this man is not - in fact - dead...”  
Opening the refrigerator Holmes left his words hanging in the air as he burrowed into its contents coming up with a bottle of water.  
“Do you mind?”  
Holmes’ inquiry was more of an afterthought than a genuine request for permission. It was readily apparent that the great detective, like House, gave little thought to the comforts and platitudes of ordinary people. Chase mused to himself again how similar was the demeanor of this man to Dr House.  
Both men seemed entirely disinterested in the thoughts and opinions of others and even less about the impressions they might leave in those they were in contact with.  
Holmes had a kind of nervous energy about him that may have made him appear uneasy but Chase could tell that it was only the rapidity with which his thoughts were racing to take in information that made him appear so.  
“No - by all means - help yourself.”  
Chase placed his coat on its hook by the door and moved towards the sitting chair next to where Holmes had been.  
“So how does this - work? How do you start looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found?”  
Holmes was already nodding as if he had moved well along that path and had to draw himself back to bring Chase up to date.  
“Mmm - that is a good question, but that is the thing about deduction. It does not matter where one starts, only that one does start and let the facts guide the theory and not the other way round.”  
He had set the bottle down and had taken to pacing somewhat stiffly back and forth across the kitchen with his hands pushed tightly into his black, navy pea coat that he had not removed.  
“I have taken the liberty to access your emails regarding this anonymous benefactor who has been assisting you in your practice. You really should consider a more thoughtful approach to password security? “Allison” is not nearly so obscure as you might think. I would posit that your divorce from your ex is not as final as she may believe - at least as far as you are concerned...but that is a matter for another discussion.”  
Chase’s mind was now reeling.  
In the span of two minutes Sherlock had broken into his home, revealed his email password, assessed his relationship with his ex wife and raided his refrigerator. While House may have him feel like an idiot on multiple occasions, he had never felt so disconcerted and now could barely manage to speak.  
“Um - okay?...”  
Chase stared at Sherlock for several long seconds, each one making him a bit more uncomfortable than the last. Even though Sherlock was nodding slightly and rocking up onto the balls of his feet - it wasn’t discomfort that motivated him but apparently just his eagerness to move things along.  
“Well then.” He began.  
“It appears that Doctor House is in or around the city of New York, which is logical given that his own personal renown prohibits him from reentering the mainstreams of society. He attempted to hide the IP addresses that he uses for such correspondence but my friends at Everyone assure me that he is posting from somewhere in Queens. That, of course, does not mean that he is living there but I can think of few other places where such a man could remain anonymous.”  
Holmes’ brief dissertation afforded Chase a moment to catch up and with the shock of finding someone in his apartment fading, he found that he could begin asking questions.  
“So does that mean you have a theory about his whereabouts?”  
The detective grimaced in such a way that Chase could not discern whether he was in physical pain or just disliked the question but his answer flowed out of him like a geyser.  
“I do not, as of yet, have such a theory but one should be forming quickly if you could provide me with a list of names of persons that the good doctor may have had occasion to visit? Not just any names but rather those who one might consider “undesirables”, “lawbreakers” even?...”  
“Lawbreakers? What do you mean?”  
Holmes stared at Chase for a second and then proceeded.  
“Beyond the ordinary definition of the word? I mean to proceed with the notion that such a man, accustomed to a good life with all its accoutrement, would not be long content living off the grid somewhere in the forest. He has internet access, therefore he has help. The only way he could have help and not come back into the light of society is if he were being helped by those that society scorns - lawbreakers. Additionally, I have found that like I had at one time, Dr House has a penchant for narcotics. Since he cannot write or get written scripts for such fare, he must turn to the black market. It is his entry into those lands that we must seek.”  
Chase considered Holmes’ words carefully and although he disliked the direction they pointed to, his logic was irrefutable.  
House had been on such a bender when the warehouse he was in collapsed and it was not difficult to imagine that he might, in fact, be off the grid but there could literally be thousands of places that an opiate addict could go unnoticed in New York City.  
“So what do you need from me other than a list of names? I mean - do you need a retainer fee or something?”  
Holmes’ mouth contorted into a kind of grimace that appeared to be an outright sneer as if the notion of money was distasteful or perhaps he was just becoming bored with the conversation, he could not tell.  
“You will find an email where you may submit Dr House’s acquaintances of ill-repute. As for the remuneration? If I have any such need, I will be sure to contact you. Until then, I shall leave you to your “date” preparations”  
The detective turned abruptly on his heel and strode toward the door.  
“Date? How did you?...”  
Chase’s words trailed off as Homes exited his apartment without answer, leaving him with his sense of bewilderment intact.  
In all the years he had spent around Dr House he had encountered only a few people whose intellect may have rivaled that of his mentor but now he felt that he had actually met a man whose mental prowess might even surpass it.   
End Ch1


	2. House Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes begins to take up the trail of the man himself - Dr Greg House.

House Hunting

Holmes enjoyed the train.  
The anonymity, the persistent rumble, it was all very conducive to his thought processes and he luxuriated himself amongst its random passengers like a bit of flotsam adrift in the endless possibilities of his new quarry. The novelty of a fresh problem with all of its uncertainties washed over him like a spring rain and each time he felt reborn. Gone for a time were the dual prospects of stagnancy and boredom that always lurked at the edge of his mind threatening the very sobriety that he had purchased at such great cost to himself and others. Pondering the known facts of a pristine case served as an efficacious poultice to the sensory siege of the Information Age in which he found himself.  
He had often thought that he might prefer to have been born in another, slower time, a time that was not inundated by the incessant bombardment of the 24 hour news cycle and the ubiquitous cell phone and internet usage that seemed like a persistent distraction to his cherished thought life. In times of repose and clarity, however, he still managed to admire all of the blessings of modernity and he sank back in his seat, letting his senses wander as they were so want to do.

The trip back to Brooklyn would take approximately 200 minutes, and he used that time to arrange the known facts in preparation to adorn the wall of his brownstone with them when he arrived.  
He knew that the days ahead would put him back in proximity to his old life of narcotics and dissipation, but while he himself felt no fear of such a journey, he knew that Watson would not feel the same. Still, it had been many months since his relapse after the incident with Oscar Rankin that had thrust him back into the throes of addiction, and while he felt as sure of his clarity as he had ever been, he could never again rule out another relapse. Part of him actually relished the opportunity to confront his demons again directly and test the mettle against them.  
Putting the dangers of the world of drugs to the back of his mind he turned to the prospect of finding the man, Dr Gregory House, a most worthwhile quarry he was sure. From what he had been able to learn to date, House was a man of prodigious abilities and also in possession of a singular intellect not unlike himself. He was sure to have covered his tracks well and had undoubtably placed many layers of cover and contingencies over his whereabouts. He had violated his parole, was at least partly responsible in the death of a fellow drug addict, and had apparently fled on a quest to see the end of his friend’s life, Dr Wilson, if Chase’s suspicions were to be believed. His medical license had been terminated when the police ruled his death an accidental one and had implicated him in the warehouse fire that for all appearances was the scene of the end of his own life.  
Holmes had forwarded the email notices that Dr Chase had received to Everyone, his erstwhile network of computer hackers, and he looked forward to what they could learn, although not to the new humiliation they would devise in recompense for their aid. He furiously attacked his cellphone’s keyboard sending requests out to his homeless menagerie along with a picture of his target as well as a few alterations that portrayed him as a vagabond and even as a woman.  
Holmes had remarked on other occasions that the best way to attack a haystack was with a pitchfork but he knew instantly that this case would require much more precise tools, and not just a little bit of luck, even though he himself did not believe in such a thing. Hard work and preparation were the mother and father of luck and while the prospect of the tedium of exploring the dark underbelly of New York’s opiate scene filled him with a twinge of ennui he relished the game nonetheless.  
Chase had given him the last five years of House’s medical cases and even though they were not that numerous, the heft of their content would require Watson’s expertise to decipher for any clues that might prove useful to his method. He tapped the handful of hard drives in his breast pocket as if to reassure himself of their presence and counted himself fortunate for such a partner as Dr Joan Watson as he had done so many times before.   
Her insights had proven decisive many times in their partnership together and she both challenged him and stabilized him in a way that he had never thought possible. He knew immediately when he considered taking the case that she would not be pleased to learn what he would have to do to locate a man such as House, a fellow addict of narcotics who had been required not only to go to ground, but who had also to feed an addiction. Those who fell beneath the thrall of pain killers as part of polite society would frequently have to turn to heroin when that same society took away the prescriptions that were so readily available.  
House was a proud man who had made enemies wherever he walked and with Wilson dead, who could he turn to? His mother would have been little help to him and his old team members were more of a liability than an asset to him now. Chase had reached out to every person he could think of, and every end had turned out to be a dead end. House had dropped off of the face of the earth - or so it seemed.  
No. Holmes was sure that House had turned to the street for his fare, for sustenance and shelter as well as for his urgent need. He undoubtably had turned his scientific knowledge, if not his medical knowledge, to the manufacture of illicit substances somewhere amongst the 14 million souls that called New York their home.  
He would find him.  
For the better part of 3 hours Holmes rearranged his mind palace to include any relevant items regarding Dr House’s life prior to his apparent death, removing extraneous information and unlikely theories in favor of more useful data and possibilities that he could affirm through his deductions. When the train rattled in to Penn Station it appeared to him to have taken almost no time at all, so engrossed was he in the workings of his mental attic.  
As the carriage began to empty he elected to remain seated waiting for the hustle of the mob to subside. Beneath the clatter of their departure he could make out the faint but distinctive click and whir of a cellphone recording images from ahead of him.  
Homes had trained himself many years ago to spot the tell tale signs of surveillance and he knew of no one who could spot a tail with greater acumen than himself.  
Someone was recording images of him.  
His eyes scanned the carriage ahead of him from the direction of the sound and he discerned a heavy coated figure moving through the sea of humanity. It held a cellphone over one shoulder for only an instant but there was no doubt the figure was seeking to capture his image.  
“Ah - this man is good. So very good...” he thought to himself.  
Of course House would have discerned that Chase would reach out to someone to discover his whereabouts and that person would have been nearby, waiting to see what his junior would attempt.  
His stalker was not without skill. The man’s phone had appeared over his shoulder for but an instant but that was enough time for Holmes to single him out and he surged from his seat to follow. Having captured the image he sought after, the man pressed through the crowd with purpose but not actual flight.  
He hadn’t realized that he had been spotted.  
Holmes flowed along with the queue attempting to close the distance without alerting the man to his intent. His skill at detecting surveillance served the dual purpose of avoid such detection as well and he continued to follow the man up through the station to the streets of Manhattan.  
The man emerged onto 8th Avenue and immediately began to head south. The cap that faced backwards on top of his head bore the logo of a club called “Terra Blues”, a blues bar in Greenwich Village and from the rest of the man’s attire and his gait, Holmes could deduce that he was likely a low income resident of that area if not entirely homeless.  
He would need assistance to continue his surveillance.  
He dialed one of his irregulars who lived in that area and continued to follow the man, keeping a proper interval between them and always maintaining himself behind another person to disguise his efforts. The target of his tail maintained an easy pace directly down 8th Avenue apparently unaware that he was being followed and since he had not turned off Holmes felt sure that he was, in fact, returning to the Village, either to his abode or to report what he had found.  
Having described the man, his irregular waited for their paths to cross at 14th street just before Greenwich Avenue diverged from his path. Once another had taken up the surveillance, Holmes could fall back and begin expanding his net to learn what he could from the man who had snapped his picture.  
After about an hour of walking he could make out his own man, Ormond, a Haitian refugee who had fallen on hard times and spent most of his days in Washington Park. Ormond recognized Holmes’ tail from the description he had been given and crashed headlong into him planting a “burner” phone in the man’s pocket, just as Holmes had taught him. The small device would serve as an adequate tracker with its GPS turned on and another homeless person began to take up the surveillance after Ormond made his apologies and asked for a donation.  
Holmes’ satisfaction registered as more of a scowl than a smile but he did feel pleased that a thread that he had not expected had revealed itself and he was able to lay hold of it and begin reading its meaning in the tapestry of his search.  
He turned woodenly on one heel and stepped to the curve taking out his whistle to hail a cab to take him back to Brooklyn, and to Watson.


	3. Elementary, Dear Watson

Holmes strode up the staircase of his brownstone in Brooklyn like a man on a mission. Taking the stairs in pairs, he flowed through the doorway like a wind of nervous energy finding Watson curled up on a chair with a book like the most contented feline to have ever lived.  
“The game Watson!” He exclaimed.  
She had seen this side of Sherlock before and was generally unmoved but a slight smirk crept across her face nonetheless.  
Placing the book gently on the end table, she removed her glasses and brushed the hair from her face in one smooth motion.  
“Let me guess? We’re taking the case?...”  
Her question was rhetorical but the unbridled energy of the man standing before her with his feet firmly together always made her smile. He was practically beaming with enthusiasm and she found herself basking in the brief respite from the perpetual dour brooding he would exhibit when immersed in the intricacies of some particularly difficult case or the long dark nights that intervened in between cases.  
Hand firmly pressed against his thighs, he rocked repeatedly onto the balls of his feet slowly as he spoke,  
“A worthy quarry has, at last, presented itself.” He proclaimed.  
The NYPD had provided only scant provender in recent weeks. Missing persons and routine homicides could only occupy his lively deductive skills for so long before he began to crave more profound distractions. Often times that would entail some bizarre experiment or perhaps a vigorous bout of sexual congress with one of his many consorts but both he and Watson were keenly aware of the dangers of such otherwise routine drudgery on his sobriety. Anything that could pique his interest to such a degree as this was bound to be a welcome visitor to the brownstone.  
Leaning forward in her chair, Watson placed her bare feet on the floor and inquired,  
“Is it - the missing doctor from New Jersey thing? I didn’t expect that to interest you at all.”  
With a flourish, Holmes removed his overcoat and tossed it onto the end of the couch across from where she was just sitting and marched abruptly into the next room.  
“Ah - Dear Watson! This is no mere doctor, I assure you. This man may, in fact, be a proper genius in every sense of the word as I understand the term.”  
Watson strode after him as he seated himself at his laptop and began to unpack the flash drives he had obtained. His hands were a flurry of activity upon the keyboard and soon the printer began to disgorge paper like a living thing.  
“This man has, at one time, maintained a thriving and world-class practice in the singular field of diagnostic medicine while at the same time being jailed, avoiding jail, serving time in a mental institution and even prison - all while maintaining a dual certification in nephrology and infectious disease!”  
The rapidity with which he spoke told her that he had much more to say but she only heard the reference to institutionalization.  
“He was institutionalized?...” she queried, looking over his shoulder.  
“Yes. Apparently he had no small difficulty with narcotics, not unlike my own.”  
Holmes appeared not to have concluded any significance between their shared difficulties with drugs but to her it represented a flashing, red warning light and she grew silent.  
Her silence was something that did register with him and after a sufficiently long pause, he stopped his typing and turned his full attention toward her.  
“This worries you?”  
Her mouth opened as if she were about to speak but then snapped suddenly closed into a kind of grimace as she struggled to decide how best to respond.   
To say that a case that would put him in close proximity to narcotics and the desire for oblivion that had once consumed him did worry her would be tantamount to saying that she doubted his commitment to sobriety. To say that it did not worry her would be a lie and he would undoubtably see through both responses and take umbrage.  
In the instant of her hesitation he filled the void with his own words.  
“I assure you Watson. I am as committed to my sobriety as ever. I shall never again traverse that dark rabbit hole again.”  
Having spoken, he turned back to his laptop and commanded.  
“Fear not! The game is afoot!”  
Briefly explaining his encounter with the stranger on the train and his reactions to it he resumed his study of the files on the flash drives he had procured.  
Knowing that the conversation had ended, Watson turned and slipped into the kitchen to prepare the coffee. The initial phase of any case invariably involved long hours of processing data, whether files or video or images or computer sites, great spans of wakefulness were surely in store. She could never match his lack of need for sleep but with enough caffeine, she always attempted to make a good showing.  
Well into the night, just before sunrise, Holmes stood over her where she had slumped atop the pile of old medical records scattered across the table. For a long moment he simply stared at her almost puzzling over her dark hair as it splayed around her in a neat arc. She had proven so many times to be a great value to his method and a part of him longed to stroke those smooth tresses but again he forbade himself.  
“Watson!”   
He bellowed, startling her to an upright position.  
Holmes’ face was grim but within he was always pleased to see that first hint of consciousness return to her porcelain face when she awoke.  
It was a guilty pleasure that he kept only for himself.  
He never tired of it.  
“It has stopped...”  
He stated unequivocally knowing that he had not provided enough information for her to jump aboard his train of thought.  
“...stopped? What’s stopped?...”  
She queried him as she wiped the sleep from her eyes and took in her surroundings trying to place again where they were in the case at hand.  
“The burner phone I planted on the good doctor’s espion’ has wound its meandering course and has, at last, come to rest in Queens.”  
She stood up quickly from the table and pulled her hair into a ponytail in anticipation of a sudden departure.  
“Where at in Queens?”  
Holmes paused briefly lifting momentarily onto the balls of his feet and then down again. He frequently resorted to like mannerisms when he was flush with the prospect of following some plan he had formulated in his mind. He could scarcely contain the eagerness to see how it would play out and so he constrained himself as much as possible but some haptic response always remained.  
“The warehouse district...  
Most assuredly not the gentrified districts of which you are familiar.”  
Watson frowned at him in mock disdain, canting her head slightly to one side.  
“It won’t be the first seedy neighborhood that I have followed you into.”  
“Nor shall it likely be the last. Still, I mislike this choice of ground to which he has fled. Fort Totten Park is largely barren and uninhabited - a veritable catacomb of empty buildings and underground bunkers from its use as a fortress during various wars.  
It has not seen regular habitation for many years.  
Of this place, I cannot say I am very much familiar.  
Our ghost doctor has chosen a most approprie’ abode in which to haunt.”  
Holmes’ gaze turned suddenly inward as he was prone to do when deeply considering a thing and Watson could almost see the gears of his mind turning through all the possible outcomes of the decisions he saw before him. As usual, she let him ruminate over his thoughts for a moment until he returned his gaze to her.  
“Hmmn?”  
Holmes queried as if she had said something that he had not heard even though she had made no sound.  
“Do you think it’s wise to just barge into an old abandoned army base? There’s no telling how many people he has working with him there.”  
“We have little choice available to us.  
No crime has been committed and to go in en masse with a brigade of our own would surely trigger his flight long before we laid hold of the man himself. A man of his intellect will surely have at least a few contingencies for a quick escape if fallen upon unwelcome guests or by our own New York’s finest.  
We mustn’t trigger those.  
Recapturing his trail thus alerted would pose most difficult.  
This task calls for stealth and a proper reconnoiter.”  
His logic was as irrefutable as ever and she made no more effort to question it, preferring instead to stand and take stock of what was likely to lay ahead.  
“Come Watson! Let us don appropriate battle gear!”  
Holmes turned on his heel and strode deliberately through the kitchen towards the stairs and was gone leaving her in his wake like a passing speed boat. She languished for only a moment in the turbulence before rising from the table a moving to attire herself in an manner fit for such work as lay ahead.

With that Holmes turned in his heel and strode toward the door to retrieve his overcoat Watson following


	4. Abandoned House

HVH Abandoned House 4

“You idiot!”  
House yelled and slammed his cane down on the table of his office. His anger erupted like a sudden downburst as its was want to do when confronted by rank stupidity or something he perceived as such.  
“Sorry boss... I thought you‘d like to know where the guy lived... How was I supposed to know he would be so good at spotting a tail?”  
The man lowered the cell phone he held out in front of him and tried to avoid House’s gaze hoping this tirade wouldn’t last as long as some past episodes had.  
“The man’s name is...Sherlock...Holmes...What? Did you just figure his dad was a fan of Conan Doyle? I told you he was probably smart!”  
The man looked over his shoulder at the dilapidated conference room outside House’s office and wondered if silence would hasten his departure but he knew House expected a reply.  
“‘Conan Doyle’? Who’s that?”  
He knew the response he drew was sure to be cutting but he figured criticism about not knowing a name might deflect him from his concern over the burner phone he had found in his pocket.  
“Foreman - how could you have gone to medical school and never heard of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Were you an affirmative action placement?”  
The man looked surprised when he called him by some name other than his own and when he called him ‘Foreman’ he never knew if that was actually a name or a title but apparently House thought he was a black man now.  
“I’m not black...”  
He offered up his words knowing they would have little sway on the delusions at play in House’s mind but he also knew that like a storm, House’s anger would eventually blow itself out.  
“Yeah - and my leg doesn’t hurt. Get out!”  
The man turned to leave but House added,  
“Leave the phones...”  
Turning, he placed both phones, the one with the picture he had taken and the one he had found in his pocket, on the desk and then quickly left. House slumped back into his desk chair and absently rubbed his leg. Changes in weather and morons always made the pain worse and he reached for the familiar bottle of pills in his jacket pocket tossing two of them into his mouth like breath mints. Just the act of taking the medicine seemed to soothe the ache that was only partly in his thigh. After staring at the phones for a long moment he separated the picture phone and smashed the other phone with what looked like, to him, a large stainless steel pestle from the mortar on his desk but in reality was only an irregular piece of masonry from the crumbling building that surrounded him. Part of him knew that he was no longer at Princeton Plainsboro but most of him, the part that mattered, did not see a run down military base but believed he was back at the hospital where so much had gone wrong but also where some things had gone right.  
At PPH, he had enjoyed the only real friendship he had ever known in Wilson. He had known love and had even said those words to Cuddy long after their brief encounter in medical school. He even had colleagues of a sort in Chase and Cameron and Foreman and several others. Even though he knew he had treated them badly he also knew that he had made them the best doctors they could be and he even got to be a better doctor himself because of their time. The part of him that wondered how it all went so wrong had turned an abandoned military hospital in Bayside, Queens into an exact reproduction of the place where the only part of his life that had any meaning had died.  
The piece of masonry in his hand changed into a pestle once again and he placed it back into the mortar after using it to scrape the shattered phone into a wastebasket.  
“Somebody find Cameron! This mail isn’t going to open itself.”  
House turned back to a computer that wasn’t there and seemed to be scrolling through web pages as a bedraggled blonde woman in her thirties ambled in with another man carrying an automatic weapon across one shoulder. House did not see that scene however. What he saw was Taub and 13 and the telltale blue files they carried.  
“Wonderful!”  
He proclaimed, leaning back in his chair as the pain in his leg began to be replaced by the euphoria of his pills.  
“Short and Shorty - but I was asking for Cameron. What do you have for me?”  
The man spoke first and handed a tattered and stained notebook to House but he saw only a medical file.  
“I think the chemistry is wrong and this batch boss. We only got 50% yield and you said it would be over 90...”  
House scribbled in the notebook furiously for a moment and then handed it back to the man.  
“Bacterial Endocarditis throwing clots. Boring and you’re and idiot! What else?”  
The woman stepped forward and spoke in 13’s voice causing House to pause and stare at her for a moment before she morphed into the dark haired doctor entirely.  
“House, I need to take some time off. Before you say anything, I’m not asking for time, I’m telling you I’m leaving for a while.”  
House leaned forward and placed his head on top of his hands with his elbows firmly on the desk.  
“Please tell me it’s a lesbian love cruise - even if it isn’t.”  
He smiled broadly and she handed him the file, which to her looked like an envelope full of cash.  
“Yes - it’s a love cruise. Can I have my check please?”  
House reached next to him and out of a pile of paperwork produced a clear, cellophane baggie full of white pills. The woman smiled broadly and replied,  
“I’ll see you next week.”  
She then turned and left quickly with House shouting after her,  
“Take lots of pictures!”  
At that, a sound behind him made him startle. He spun on his chair only to see another man that he hadn’t notice earlier. This man was a large, hulking black man with a camouflage jacket and also holding an automatic weapon.  
It was Foreman again.  
“Jesus Foreman! Do I have to get you a bell?”  
The man ignored his comment entirely and asked,  
“Do you want me to take that for you?”  
House looked down at the file and tossed the envelope full of money lightly to the man.  
“You’re going to do my charting for me? I thought that was Cameron’s job? Now get out - my soap is almost on.”  
The man took the envelope and left the room as House turned toward a television set that had no screen inside but that no longer mattered to him. His favorite soap opera played anyway and he slouched back into his chair and slowly drifted off into oblivion.  
As the man left, he noticed one of the tarps had pulled loose from its tether and was allowing light from outside into the room. Stopping briefly to re-tie it he the walked toward the door again only to shut off the light leaving House to the darkness of his room and his mind.

Holmes moved quickly down the stairs to first floor of the brownstone thundering his partner’s name.  
“Watson!”  
Joan stepped out of the sitting room into the entry way at the base of the stairs and reached for her coat.  
“You’re sure you don’t want to call Captain Greyson first? Just to let him know where we’re going?”  
Wrapping her scarf around her neck she prepared to steel herself against the cold air of the city in late winter.  
“The less he knows about our activities where the NYPD is not yet involved the better. We simply seek more data. I cannot make bricks without straw you know?”  
Holmes pulled his own coat over his shoulders and led her towards the door.  
“You’re ‘bricks’ have a habit of getting you into trouble. I just thought it might be a good idea to give him a heads up but I see your point. Let’s go.”  
The two detectives stepped out of the brownstone and into the brisk morning air of Brooklyn. It was too cold to snow and Holmes' breath steamed hotly as if his spirit were eager to leave his body and draw him into another quest for yet another quarry. Watson stepped quickly to keep pace with him and a part of her rejoiced to see this side of the man who had come to mean so much to her.   
Holmes inevitably found himself between one of two extremes. He would either be wracking his prodigious intellect against some intractable case, going for days without sleep or food, or be languishing between cases ever seeking to occupy his mind with greater and more extreme distractions. The middle ground when a case was fresh and novel was always her favorite time with Sherlock. His enthusiasm seemed boundless and his keen mind almost bristled tangibly with theories and insights as he sought to tie all the disparate facts in his possession into a coherent whole. His spine was straight and his gate purposeful as he surged toward the subway as if drawn there by some invisible vortex.   
"So you must have a theory about this missing doctor?"  
Watson's attempt to elicit a response from him was only a vaguely disguised attempt by her to gauge his mental state. Holmes knee that she would never release her fear that he might relapse again into heroin addiction and while he did not share her concern he had come to value her too much to dismiss her trepidations out of hand. She had long ago earned her right to her own concerns however unfounded her believed them to be so he indulged her.  
"You know I am loathe to voice my theories while they are yet in an embryonic state Watson but, yes, I do have a working theory."  
He knew that the brevity of his reply would be insufficient but in an effort to reduce the amount he would have to say he decided to allow her to pull the information out of him bit by bit rather than offer it to her wholesale and perhaps be drawn into a more personal conversation about his addiction and her own fears.  
While he respected her concern for his well being, he felt no obligation to bare his soul to her. He had let a woman, the woman, get that close before and with such disastrous consequences, he vowed never to repeat that oversight again. His own iron will had served him well before Moriarty and had been jusr as efficacious since his recovery except for a few minor setbacks. Allowing others to take responsibility for his strength of mind was simply a bridge too far for him. While there had been times when he had been tempted to let her into his world much more deeply, walking the streets of Brooklyn on the hunt, as it were, was not one of those times.  
"If you share your theory with me then maybe there will be two sets of eyes looking for clues that support or refute it?"  
Her eyes were smiling as they did when she had posed a logical inquiry that she knew he could not refute. She was more than a little pleased with herself and Sherlock wondered if there might come a day when she could read him so fully that words would no longer be necessary. Today was not that day however.  
"From my reading of the circumstances surrounding his commission to Mayfield, Dr House was chronically addicted to Vicodin since an infarction in his leg afflicted him with long term pain. While he was free from the grip of said drug for some minor periods, he always returned to its use as drug addicts are want to do."  
No small amount of self-flagellation lurked behind his words but they came with such rapidity that Watson had no opportunity intervene.  
"After the diagnosis of his one and only friend, one Dr James Wilson, with metastatic cancer he apparently spiralled out of control once again. According to police reports, Dr House allegedly died in a suspicious warehouse fire where he had holed up during a particularly despondent binge."  
Watson had been waiting patiently as Holmes laid out the basics of the case which she already knew. His mind was as keen as it had ever been and she had learned from her earliest days that her best service to him lie in allowing him to lay out the facts and then ask questions that ineffibly stimulated him to make some connection that only his bizarre brain would allow. At times she had true insight that aided them and at others she would notice some obscure detail that had eluded even him but her role as a sounding board was both efficacious to him and also vaguely satisfying to her.  
Into the space between his exhalation of facts she posed her question.  
"So you're not convinced of his death, that's obvious, but what has he been doing since that time? It's been nearly three years since that fire?"  
Holmes smiled almost imperceptibly but did not alter his stride in the least.  
"That - is the central question Watson. What indeed? What does your own intuition tell you?"  
Watson's eyes rolled slightly as her gaze scanned the street ahead. He frequently resorted to inquiring of her when he already had his own theories, not to test her but more to allow her the opportunity to develop her own insights and also to learn to trust them. She couldn't help feeling as though she were being put on the spot in front of his prodigious intellect but she had long ago outgrown any discomfort such scrutiny carried. She had, in fact, grown so used to it that the entire transaction had become a normal part of their method and she leapt into it with abandon.  
"Well - his license would have been suspended when the ME filed a death certificate in his name so he wouldn't really be able to practice medicine, at least not in any typical sense..."  
She paused momentarily to collect her words and Holmes urged her on by saying,  
"Go on..."  
"The fact that he is offering advice to Dr Chase makes it likely that he has access to at least one of his old acquaintances and some internet access too. He must be making a living somehow though?"  
Her question was rhetorical but Holmes answered it anyway.  
"It is easy enough to forge prescriptions as we found one Dr Franny Kreig doing that very thing not long ago. However, seeing outpatients on the sly and without proper facilities would not be capable of supporting a man such as Gregory House with his various appetites, Vicodin being not the least of them."  
The two of them arrived at the subway station and made their way down the stairs. The kill in the conversation gave Watson time enough to catch up to where Holmes was going with his theory and with a taste of concern rising in her mouth she asked,  
"How do you suppose he is getting his pain pills ? The current crackdown on opiates must be complicating things for him?"  
Watson had stumbled into the heart of his theory and no small part of her knew she was not going to like where his answer would lead them.  
"That dear Watson is the chink in his armor, the raison d'etre for the man. I believe that he has gotten himself involved in the market for illegal narcotics. Whether he is a mere facilitator or he is synthesizing the drug himself, I believe that is the most likely scenario that would afford him both funds to support his past lifestyle and give him the oblivion that his addiction craves."  
She was right.  
She did not like where his theory was leading. It pained her to hear Holmes talk about the oblivion craved by an addict. Even though he spoke in the third person, she heard every word as if he were speaking of himself. Maybe it was the fact that House was a doctor as she was or the fact that his intellect rivaled Holmes' own but somehow this case had a different feel to it than any other case she had been on. She found herself fearing that it might end up exacting a price on one or both of them that no other case ever had.  
Holmes had stopped walking and was standing at the turnstile looking directly at her.  
"You are still troubled by the narcotic nature of this case? Speak your mind and let us dispense with these fears forthwith."  
Again Holmes was standing straight with his arms firmly planted at his sides and a slightly forward lean indicating that she had his undivided attention. Holmes' singular gaze could be rather disconcerting to those unaccustomed to it but Watson had seen every conceivable side of the man over the course of her nearly decade long tenure with him. He could spot a lie better than anyone she had ever met and with the great database in his mental "attic" at the ready he would not easily succumb to misinformation either. She had learned long ago that truth was what he respected and also what he expected and she always sought to give that to him even at times to her detriment.  
"I don't like just blithely walking into an abandoned military base in search of a genius drug addict. Call me foolish!"  
She stop upright before him with her arms crossed almost in defiance of his plan.  
Holmes liked to see this side of her however, even though he would not let her know that for fear of making his life any more difficult than it needed to be. Her challenges to him always served as an anchor for his mental strategies. Whether they were successful or not they forced him to be able to defend his thinking when usually there was no one around to do so. If she could not find fault with his measures then his confidence was doubled. Perhaps not doubled but at least he felt it had been checked by someone he respected.  
"I never 'blithely' walk anywhere Watson. Are you sure it's not the fact that another addicted genius is our quarry this day that troubles you and not a simple reconnoiter absent a cavalry backup?"  
His emphasis on the final P-sound served as his throwing down of the gauntlet to her and she recognized it immediately. He was effectively saying "If you don't trust my dedication to sobriety you may return to the brownstone" and there was very little she could do when he held the bit in his mouth this way so she relented.  
Holmes could see the air come out of her argument if not her concern but that was enough for him and so he turned on his heel and strode towards the carriage that had just arrived to take them to Queens.  
Once arrived, he attempted to hail a cab in his usual manner, a police whistle, which always made her cringe at the shrill sound but inevitably one did stop and they entered. Holmes bade the driver to an address that she knew to be quite a few miles from their destination. Her quick look ascanse in his direction elicited and immediate response.  
"I'm afraid our approach must be on foot. The good doctor is sure to have lookouts posted near his exact location and the sudden arrival of a cab is sure to alert them and send him to ground. If I have a sense of the man, and I believe I do, we must tread warily. Uncovering his whereabouts a second time would likely prove difficult if not nigh impossible."  
She nodded slightly in assent as usual his logic was unassailable and the trip to Fort Totten Park was not a long one but it was a silent one. Holmes could tell by her haptics that she was still brooding over the pending quest for a genius opiate addict but decided to give her the space to make her peace with it on her own terms.   
She deserved that and more from him if few others did. In his mind she had proven herself to be exceptional in every sense of the word many times and that was not a word that he threw around with ease. In moments of repose as in the cab or his sensory deprivation tank his mind would often turn to the only other woman who had ever shared that moniker.  
Moriarty.  
He had loved her as Irene as he had loved no other and he had even come to love her, after a fashion, as Jamie Moriarty but there was no escaping, for his active mind, the similarities of his feelings for both women. Irene Adler had come upon him like a hurricane. A furious storm of passion and intrigue and deep intellectual engagement that had left in its wake a broken and addicted shell of the man that he truly was.   
Joan Watson had come upon him like an army of silent assassins, who instead of seeking his life, sought only his well-being. Fresh out of recovery, he had treated her terribly but she endured it with more grace and persistence than he could have possibly deserved. She had taken his storm from him and even his way of processors the world into herself and returned it to him as a sacred thing, something to be cherished and nourished not locked away in the work of a lonely investigator.  
She was - exceptional, and his life was markedly better for her presence in it in a way he had never considered possible even before Moriarty. He knew the depths of her dogged determination would not let her release her worries about the consequences of the case at hand but he also knew that she would somehow manage to square that particular circle and live up to her role as his partner as she always had. There was no doubt anywhere within him so he left her to chew on the gristle of her disquietude and let his own mind wander through the various scenarios he had stored in his attic.  
It was entirely possible that House was merely a vagrant now with an internet connection and a vapid curiosity regarding his former underlings but that was too ordinary for anything but a passing consideration. It was also possible that he was being used by some nefarious group or individual for his medical skills and his outreach the Dr Chase had been a form of SOS to any would be rescuers canny enough to detect it. Perhpas some crime family had deduced his whereabouts and found some method of using him to turn a profit. While certainly within the realm of possibility, the sending of a spy to determine who Chase might be communicating with suggested that House himself was at the head of whatever endeavor he was involved with.  
No matter how he turned it, he kept coming to posit the same scenario. House had turned to crime and was somehow using these efforts to supply himself with the narcotics that he so desperately craved for much of his life after the incident that befell his leg. The loss of his best friend and his career through the staged loss of his life could not have been an easy on him and with no one to turn to, he most assuredly had turned to his favorite poultice.  
Opiates.


End file.
